Moss Adams Wealth Advisors, the wealth division of accounting firm Moss Adams that last year combined with Baker Tilly, has spun out to become an independent registered investment advisor with $5.8 billion in assets under management.
The new firm, called Threadline Wealth, made the move with backing from co-owner The Cynosure Group and a group of employee owners that “more than doubles” the wealth division’s previous number of employee stakeholders, according to CEO and co-founder Justin Fisher.
Eric Miles, who had been CEO of Moss Adams before the merger with Baker Tilly, remains CEO of Baker Tilly. As part of the merger of those two firms, private equity firms Hellman & Friedman and Valeas Capital, existing Baker Tilly stakeholders made additional investments, according to an announcement at the time.
Fisher, formerly the private client group leader at Moss Adams, said the Seattle-based Threadline will maintain its current custodial and wealth technology platform in the liftoff, along with its tax strategy focus for high-net-worth families and business owners that includes a large client base in Silicon Valley.
“We’re working with owners, executives—folks that are going to need expertise from a large accounting and consulting firm,” he said. “We really recognized that we’ve got to be all in on wealth management from an operating model and from a technology standpoint in order to really serve those clients differently in three, four years from now and going forward.”
The wealth division of Moss Adams had been discussing the breakaway with Baker Tilly leadership for over a year, Fisher said. He said there was a mutual understanding that the wealth team’s work to provide clients with private investment options, as well as invest aggressively in technology and talent, would not do as well if it remained in the accounting firm.
“For us, it’s really about being free from the requirements so we don’t cause a safety problem with the accounting firm and still invest in the entire universe of private investments,” he said. “You’ll have Baker Tilly want to audit a company that we may want to invest client funds in—from an allocation standpoint, why have that friction there? How does that serve the clients better?”
Threadeline launches with 60 employees, about half of whom are advisors. The firm custodies with Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments’ National Financial Services, according to its most recent Form ADV.
New CEO Fisher sees Threadline as building on its accounting and tax roots. He said upper-high-net-worth clients, particularly business owners, founders and executives, have a growing need to combine their investing, tax strategy, liquidity planning and estate design under one roof.
“When you look at the balance sheet of executives, owners and high-net-worth families that have balance sheets that are in the federally taxable range and above, they have a whole lot of financial complexity that they’re trying to navigate,” he said. “I probably don’t go a day without talking to an owner about a tax strategy.”
Cynosure will hold seats on Threadline’s board and be a partner in shaping the business, Fisher said.
The wealth management industry investor, which also has its own RIA, has investments in large RIA platforms, including Steward Partners and Savant Wealth.
In February, there was a similar tax-focused advisory breakout with a new firm called Aerodigm Wealth. That RIA launched in Portland, Ore., via a management buyout of accounting firm Delap LLP’s wealth division.
In addition, large RIAs have been bulking up their tax strategy expertise in recent years, sometimes adding full tax accounting practices through acquisitions or partnering through various models.
In January, Merit Financial Advisors acquired SSC Wealth, the $260 million financial advice team of SSC CPAs + Advisors, while keeping a relationship with the parent firm. In late 2025, Moneco Advisors, a Fairfield, Conn.-based registered investment advisor with about $2 billion in client assets, completed a merger with Lichtenstein Financial and its affiliated tax firm, Lichtenstein Tax Consultants, which it acquired in 2023.
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